


Breaking The First Rule

by DarknessAroundUs



Series: Underground Fight Club AU [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Books, F/M, Family Secrets, Fluff, Growing Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:21:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22801705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarknessAroundUs/pseuds/DarknessAroundUs
Summary: By the time Gabe turns thirteen, he’s resigned himself to a boring life. One with a mother who makes dinner from scratch and a father who reads to him at night. His parents are so caring in this crafted way, that sometimes Gabe suspects they are just reading off a sitcom script.But sitcom parents were never professors who worked on research till all hours of the morning, and librarians who in their spare time ran marathons.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Sweet Pea, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Series: Underground Fight Club AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639204
Comments: 41
Kudos: 72





	Breaking The First Rule

**Author's Note:**

> All the thanks go to KittiLee for being a great beta. Any mistakes were contributed by me. 
> 
> I'm so grateful for all the love the first fic in this series received.

When Gabe was little, he’d assumed, based on all the books he’d read, that he’d turn nine or ten and something momentous would happen. 

Gabe wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t expect a Hogwarts letter shoved under the door, or a wardrobe journey to another land, But he thought maybe his country would be invaded by enemy soldiers and he’d have to prove his worth, or he’d design a video game and make a lot of money. 

Maybe he’d just grow tired of his parents and make a home in a hollow tree in the woods. Gabe had read a lot of books, he knew there were a lot of options, and all of these options were far more interesting than life in the suburbs of Princeton, with academic parents and a sister who read even more than he did. 

Except somehow Gabe turned nine, then ten, eleven, and twelve, and his life remained largely uneventful. There was homework, weekend hikes, and trips into the city with his parents to watch the Met or visit his uncles.

Sometimes they went camping, but even that was uneventful. There was never even a hint of talking animals and the only bear they ever saw was running away from him. 

His sister Vera never seemed bothered by the uneventfulness of their lives. She was too caught up in her friendships. 

By the time Gabe turns thirteen, he’s resigned himself to a boring life. One with a mother who makes dinner from scratch and a father who reads to him at night. His parents are so caring in this crafted way, that sometimes Gabe suspects they are just reading off a sitcom script.

But sitcom parents were never professors who worked on research till all hours of the morning, and librarians who in their spare time ran marathons. Sometimes though Gabe just wished they’d really yell at him, or fight with each other, like parents were supposed to. They bickered sometimes, but mostly they were eerily on the same page.

Sometimes, he would swear that his parents were part of the bigger adventure that was brewing. As kind and transparent as they mostly were, he always felt like they might know more than they let on.

Like the fact that every week when his uncles visit, they’d disappear down to the basement with his dad and come back up sweaty and sometimes bleeding.

Or the fact that his mother had a scar on her back she would never tell him about, but that was visible when she put books back on the highest shelf. 

But most of his life is caught up in homework, in reading, and putting together a 500-piece cat puzzle with his parents, while they hold hands. 

Whenever Gabe complains about how boring his life is to his best friend Steve, Steve rolls his eyes and says, “Your dad is named Jughead and your mother is a sexy librarian, what more do you want?”

Every time, Gabe replies, “To not know that you think my mom is sexy.”

Steve just laughs. Steve has no filter, so Gabe’s used to Steve saying things Gabe does not want to hear.

But Gabe knows that everyone else at their school thinks of Gabe as boring. No one else really bothers talking to him, and once he hears a teacher refer to him as smart but dull, when she doesn’t think he’s listening. 

He can’t help but agree with the teacher a little. If he were more interesting, perhaps his life would be more interesting. He tries to dye his hair blue but ends up with no visible change and a big mess in the bathroom. 

After living in the same boring house, on the same boring block, for his whole life, Gabe’s parents declare they are moving to Boston. His mom has a great offer at the Harvard Library, his father a tenured position at Emerson. 

On one hand, Gabe’s going to miss Princeton. He’s going to miss the weekend Manhattan visits, and most of all he’s going to miss Steve. 

On the other hand, Gabe feels incredibly excited because this is his opportunity to become more interesting, and maybe even have an adventure. 

Gabe convinces Betty to let him shave his head right before school starts. 

He turns fourteen in July, and in August he grew half a foot and facial hair (sort of). 

When Gabe looks in the mirror, he feels like he’s already seeing that more interesting person. He looks older and tougher somehow, like he’s lived a life that doesn’t involve a comfortable upper middle class existence. 

Workmen renovating the Jones’s new house make the mistake of leaving a pack of cigarettes behind. Gabe smokes one, coughs up a small storm in the dusty backyard, and then, smokes another one more successfully. He saves the rest of the pack for the first day of school. 

His mom looks at him funny after he smokes the cigarettes. Like she knows what he’s up to, but she doesn’t say anything, so he must just be projecting. 

On the first day of school Gabe refuses to let either of his parents drop him off.

His dad seems particularly upset by it. “I was cool once, you know,” his dad says with a head shake and a small pout. 

His mom doesn’t push to drop him off. He knew she wouldn’t. She’s not the kind of parent to insist on anything, unless it’s life or death. 

Gabe arrives at school, covered in a sheen of sweat. The walk over is long and mostly uphill. The building itself looks a lot like his last school. It’s a brick building with an imposing facade and a large field. 

The students seem similar too. Everyone’s solidly middle class or wealthy, with brand new back packs and outfits. Gabe realizes that he might have actually barked up the wrong tree in terms of adventure. But he still has a packet of cigarettes in his backpack and just the thought of that potential rebellion resting next to his cell phone gives him hope and a secret thrill.

His teachers all seem fine, and none of the other students seem to care about him at all. At lunch he sits next to another new student in silence. 

It’s only after the last bell of the day rings that Gabe finds his way to the back of the building, facing the field. 

Leaning against the school’s warm bricks he lights up a cigarette. Gabe has to do it with a match, because it’s not like his parents have lighters lying around. But no one can see him awkwardly hold the matchstick against the tip, praying that it will light. 

By the time anyone can see Gabe, he’s puffing away on the cigarette, exactly as he had practiced at home. The first person that passes him is a girl that looks younger than he is. She doesn’t make eye contact, just walks past quickly.

The next few people ignore him as well. A group of girls pass, so caught up in their own conversation they don’t appear to notice him at all. Gabe’s so busy watching them, that he’s caught by surprise when a hand slams down on his shoulder.

Gabe yelps in a way that could only be described as undignified and he desperately hopes that the hand doesn’t belong to a teacher. He turns around and discovers that instead it’s a taller boy, hair slicked back like a bad extra from Grease. 

Gabe’s about to say as much when the other boy pushes him into the wall. Gabe instinctively pushes back. It’s a stalemate pretty much from the get go, one boy having the advantage and then the other, only Gabe’s got the wall behind him so he’s not going far.

The cigarette goes out, as part of the scuffle, but it’s still in Gabe’s mouth, thanks to his teeth. A horrible taste tinges his tongue. 

Then the other boy lets go of Gabe suddenly. He feels a moment of relief that this is all over, and that’s when the stranger punches Gabe in the face.

The punch isn’t particularly well aimed, and the person who is throwing it doesn’t actually know how to, so even though the impact of the punch sends the cigarette flying out of Gabe’s mouth, and it hurts a little, it’s far from a disaster. It’s an adventure of a sort.

Gabe punches back, even less steady in his aim, the blow glancing across the other boy’s jaw, in a way that makes every bone in Gabe’s hand hurt. 

The stranger kicks Gabe in the shins in retaliation, and if it didn’t hurt so damned much, Gabe would make fun of him for such a girly move; although clearly neither of them are trained fighters here.

“Just give me your cigarettes,” the other boy says.

“Hell no,” Gabe replies, even though he’s so winded right now he can’t imagine smoking them. They are both on the grass now, sitting not sparing. 

The other boy’s got long blond hair that’s covering part of his face. 

“Who are you?” Gabe asks out of curiosity. He doesn’t recognize the other boy from any of his classes. 

“Quinn. You’re the new kid, right?”

“Yeah.” Gabe’s actually one of at least a half a dozen new kids, but that doesn’t seem to matter right now.

“Who’s your source for smokes?” Quinn asks.

“I’m not telling you.”

Quinn in the first effective use of his body mass elbows Gabe straight in the eye. For a second stars are seen, bright and white against the back of his lids.

Gabe lies down on the grass behind him, only half aware of his surroundings. 

Quinn starts muttering, “shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.”

“You can have the cigarettes,” Gabe mumbles. He can’t see but he can talk. He’s had enough of an adventure for now.

“I don’t want them,” Quinn says. “I didn’t mean to really hurt you.”

Gabe opens his eyes but doesn’t sit up yet. “Why did you?”

Quinn shrugs, “I always wanted to try cigarettes.”

Gabe laughs and sits up slowly. He can’t judge Quinn too harshly, considering. 

Neither of them end up smoking, but they end up talking for a long time on the grass. It turns out they both really like the same books. Gabe starts to suspect, just a little, that Quinn wants more adventure in his life too. 

The bruises hurt, but they don’t hurt too much. Gabe mostly forgets about them on the walk home. Instead he’s thinking about the book he wants to loan Quinn. 

It’s only when Gabe’s washing his hands in the bathroom at home that he realizes he has a problem. It may not have seemed like much of a fight, but Gabe’s face is beginning to bruise badly, and somehow, although he has no idea how, his forearm is mottled purple

Gabe could care less about appearances, but he’s a little worried what his parents will think. He’s never gotten into a fight before and he is sure that his parents will be shocked at such violence. Still it’s too late to steal Vera’s makeup, because the front door opens.

Gabe can hear his mom and dad enter the house, chatting about something academic. Gabe decides to rip the metaphorical band-aid off, and he opens the bathroom door and says “Hey mom and dad.”

Their reaction is the one he expected initially and they both look a little shocked, but only momentarily. Soon his mom’s applying ice to his eye and forearm. In the same practiced way she applied ice when he fell off his bike and his bed.

“What happened?” his dad asks, one eyebrow raised.

The whole story tumbles out awkwardly. It’s a full confession involving cigarettes and Quinn, the stars Gabe so briefly saw. 

After Gabe finishes telling his story, it looks like his dad is pressing his lips together to prevent laughter, but really that can’t be right, Gabe tells himself. There’s nothing funny about this after all. 

When the whole story is over, his mom pats his arm and says, “I’m just glad you're ok.”

His dad pushes away from the table, and says “Come on, Betts. We have to tell him. We have to teach him.”

His mom shakes her head, but a smile tugs at her lips. 

“Please. We can’t let our child be defenseless,” Jughead says, pressing his hands together, his eyes big and begging. Gabe knows this move, knows that his mom is all but defenseless against it. 

His mom smiles and shakes her head, then says, “Fine.”

Gabe can’t help but feel excited by all this. It feels exactly like the moment in a story before the adventure begins.

“Do you know how I met your mother?” his dad asks, and Gabe can’t help but feel let down by the question. It’s not where he was hoping this story was going. 

But then he realizes, with a jolt of surprise, that he doesn’t actually know the answer to this question. 

He’s overheard his parents tell the story of how they’ve met a hundred times before, to neighbors and friends, former students, and even once a pharmacist, but it’s never the same story. It’s some sort of game between them, Gabe thinks, to make up more outlandish ones. 

Some of the stories Gabe wishes he’d rather not have overheard, even though he’s fairly certain they aren’t true.

“No.” Gabe finally says.

“We met at a fight club. I was one of the fighter’s, and your mom was the coach for my opponent.”

Gabe shakes his head. It’s just another bullshit story. There’s nothing of substance there. 

“Stop joking. This isn’t funny.” 

His mom, always the parent he could trust to be more honest, shakes her head. “He’s not joking.”

Gabe’s jaw drops. “No fucking way.”

At the same time, both his parents say, “Language.”

“Does Vera know?” Gabe asks. His sister’s always been a bit of a mystery to him. She’s even more of one now that she wears makeup and has a drivers license. 

“She does,” Betty says. “We’ve trained her a little. It’s not really her thing.”

“Did you fight too, mom?” Gabe asks.

“No.” 

“Not officially,” His dad says with a smirk. “I’ve certainly seen her take a guy out more than once though.”

“Juggie.” His mom says, taking his dad’s hand with an affectionate grin on her face.

“Really?” 

“Your mom was one of the best trainers around.”

“And your dad was one of the best fighters,” his mom says with a wink. “He defeated my fighter in the end.”

It’s strange to see this whole other side of his parents revealed unexpectedly. He stares at them. They still look the same, which is to say like his parents, graying slightly, but strong, and he feels like he’s not seeing the same people at all.

“Who was your fighter?” Gabe asks.

“Uncle Archie.” His mom answers with a smile. “And your dad’s trainer was Sweet Pea. It’s how we all met.”

“Holy shit,” Gabe says, and he can’t help but wonder other secrets the adults in his life have. Maybe his English teacher was a spy, and his dentist an Olympian. 

His parents aren’t telling him this now for fun though. There’s a goal here. It’s clear.

“You could train me to fight?” Gabe asks, tentatively.

“If you wanted,” his mom says with a thoughtful head tilt. “Vera didn’t want to learn past the basics. And the goal would never be to fight underground, just to know how to defend yourself.”

That last sentences raises so many questions. Only now can he imagine his sedate father, and his calm caring mother, in some dingy basement somewhere exchanging blows, or telling people to exchange them, but he can’t picture how they got there. 

He’s never known much about their childhood. His mom’s life stories start in high school, but mainly involve friends, Uncle Archie’s a recurring character. His dad’s life has been mostly shared by Sweet Pea, who casually drops clues about trailer park living. 

“I want to learn,” Gabe says, and over the next year he does. Now when his uncles come over, he follows the rest of the men downstairs after dinner. Often Betty joins them, and on rare occasions Vera, expression judgmental at first, and then softening.

They spar mostly and everyone gives Gabe tips. It takes him a while to keep things straight, when to punch, when to hit, when to jab. Sometimes the inner monologue of instruction overwhelms his ability to do anything and he just stands there.

Every morning he starts running with his mom and in the afternoon he lifts weights with his dad. 

At school Quinn has become his best friend and constant companion. Yet Gabe tells him nothing about fighting, nothing about the door he’s unlocked to discover his parent’s secret past lives. 

Yet now he knows so much more about both of them then he used to. One day while sparring his dad tells him all about the fights he and Sweet Pea got into in college. About how Sweet Pea had to stop fighting because of his anger, but for Jughead the fight was a release in and of itself. 

Gabe learns about the one time his dad took down a former legend of a boxer in only two rounds.

His mom tells him about the time she and Archie had to run from the police after a fight, and ended up hiding behind a dumpster for two hours, with Archie’s rival at the time. Gabe falls off the kitchen stool laughing. 

Maybe Gabe’s life isn’t more exciting now, there’s no billionaire aunts or mysterious weapons, but he’s so much happier, knowing who his parents really are, learning who they used to be.

He understands that they’re people now. People who are doing their best to give him what they never had. Stability and regular meals, ears that didn’t judge too harshly.

Gabe gets better at fighting too. He punches stronger and ducks faster. He thinks a little about the feeling that would flood his whole body if he fought off an assailant in a dark alley or a stranger in the ring.

Those thoughts appeal to a part of him, the part that craved an adventure and struggled against suburban monotony. But in the end, he realizes that he doesn’t have anything to prove, nothing to rebel or fight against. Instead, he starts to type putting one word in front of the other, using his training and his parents experience to craft something new, not a fight, but a knockout in his own way.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much! Please review!


End file.
